Akbari, Ustad Muhammad
Akbari, Ustad Muhammad. See Ustad Muhammad Akbari.
Akbar, Sardar Muhammad
Akbar, Sardar Muhammad. See Sardar Muhammad Akbar.
Akbar, Sardar Muhammad. See Sardar Muhammad Akbar.
Akef, Mohammed
Mohammed Mahdi Akef (Arabic: محمد مهدى عاكف) (b. July 12, 1928, Kafr Awad Al Seneita, Dakahliya Province, Egypt – d. September 22, 2017, Cairo, Egypt) was the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamic political movement, from 2004 until 2010. He assumed the post, that of "general guide" (Arabic: المرشد العام - frequently translated as "chairman") upon the death of his predecessor, Ma'mun al-Hudaybi. Akef was arrested on July 4, 2013. On July 14, 2013 Egypt's new prosecutor general Hisham Barakat ordered his assets to be frozen.
Mohammed Mahdi Akef (Arabic: محمد مهدى عاكف) (b. July 12, 1928, Kafr Awad Al Seneita, Dakahliya Province, Egypt – d. September 22, 2017, Cairo, Egypt) was the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egypt-based Islamic political movement, from 2004 until 2010. He assumed the post, that of "general guide" (Arabic: المرشد العام - frequently translated as "chairman") upon the death of his predecessor, Ma'mun al-Hudaybi. Akef was arrested on July 4, 2013. On July 14, 2013 Egypt's new prosecutor general Hisham Barakat ordered his assets to be frozen.
Akef was born in 1928 in Kafr Awad Al Seneita in Dakahliya Province, in the north of Egypt. The year of his birth was the year the Muslim Brotherhood Movement was founded.
Akef obtained his Primary Certificate of Education at Al Mansoura Primary School, and obtained his Secondary Certificate of Education at Cairo- Fuad 1st Secondary School. He then joined the Higher Institute of Physical Education and graduated in May 1950, after which he worked as a teacher at Fuad 1st Secondary School.
Akef first became involved with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1940, which was then led by Hassan al Banna.
Akef joined the Faculty of Law and assumed responsibility for the Brotherhood's training camps at Ibrahim University (present-day Ain Shams University). This was during the struggle against the British occupation in the Canal preceding the 1952 Revolution, after which he left responsibility to Kamaleddin Hussein, then National Guard Chief.
The last Sections Akef headed in the Muslim Brotherhood before 1954 were the Students Section and the PE Section at the Groups Headquarters.
Akef was arrested on August 1, 1954 and stood trial on charges including smuggling Major General Abdul Munem Abderraoof (one of the Army chiefs who spearheaded the ouster and expulsion of King Farouq), and was sentenced to death in absentia before the ruling was commuted to life imprisonment.
Akef was released in 1974 and was reappointed General Manager of Youth – a department affiliated to the Ministry of Reconstruction.
Akef then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to work as an advisor for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and was in charge of its camps and conferences. He took part in organizing the biggest camps for the Muslim youth on the world arena; in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Australia, Mali, Kenya, Cyprus, Germany, Britain and America.
Beginning in 1987, Akef was a member of the Steering Bureau (Guidance Bureau) of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Akef was elected Member of Parliament in 1987 for the East Cairo electoral constituency.
In 1996, Akef was court-martialed, charged with being head of the Muslim Brotherhood International Organization, and was sentenced to three years. He was released in 1999.
In 2005, he denounced what he called "the myth of the Holocaust" in defending Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust, and accused the United States of attacking anyone who raised questions about the Holocaust.
On October 19, 2009, Egyptian newspapers reported that Akef had resigned as the general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood after a dispute among various leaders in the group. However the following day reports on the Muslim Brotherhood website stated that Akef had not resigned and would continue to serve as the group's general guide until elections in January 2010.
Akef's health deteriorated while he was imprisoned by the Egyptian authorities after the 2013 Egyptian coup d'etat, his daughter affirmed that he was isolated in the prison hospital and was only allowed a visit once a week, despite his old age and poor health.
He died on September 22, 2017 at the age of 89.
Akef, Naima
Aish Wal Malh (1949) Lahalibo (1949). Baladi Wa Khafa (1949). Furigat (1950). Baba Areess (1950). Fataat Al Sirk (1951). Ya Halawaat Al Hubb (1952). Arbah Banat Wa Zabit (1954). Aziza (1955). Tamr Henna (1957) with Ahmed Ramzy, Fayza Ahmed and Rushdy Abaza. Amir El Dahaa (1964).
Naima Akef (b. October 7, 1929, Tanta, Egypt - d. April 23, 1966) was a famous Egyptian belly dancer during the Egyptian cinema's golden age and starred in many films of the time. Naima Akef was born in Tanta on the Nile Delta. Her parents were acrobats in the Akef Circus (run by Naima’s grandfather), which was one of the best known circuses at the time. She started performing in the circus at the age of four, and quickly became one of the most popular acts with her acrobatic skills. Her family was based in the Bab el Khalq district of Cairo, but they traveled far and wide in order to perform.
The circus disbanded when Naima was 14, but this was only the beginning of her career. Her grandfather had many connections in the performance world of Cairo and he introduced her to his friends. When Naima’s parents divorced, she formed an acrobatic and clown act that performed in many clubs throughout Cairo. She then got the chance to work in Badeia Masabny's famous nightclub, where she became a star and was one of the very few who danced and sang. Her time with Badeia, however, was short-lived, as Badeia favored her, which made the other performers jealous. One day they ganged up on her and attempted to beat her up, but she proved to be stronger and more agile and won the fight. This caused her to be fired, so she started performing elsewhere.
The Kit Kat Club was another famous venue in Cairo, and this is where Naima was introduced to film director Abbas Kemal. Kemal's brother, Hussein Fawzy, also a film director, was very interested in having Naima star in one of his musical films. The first of such films was "Al-Eich wal malh" (Bread and Salt). Her costar was singer Saad Abdel Wahab, the nephew of the legendary singer and composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab. The film premiered on January 17, 1949, and was an instant success, bringing recognition also to Nahhas Film studios.
Naima quit acting in 1964 to take care of her only child, a son from her second marriage to accountant Salaheldeen Abdel Aleem. She died two years later from cancer at the age of 36.
A selective filmography of Naima Akef reads as follows:
Akhtar Khan, 'Abdul Rahman
Akhtar Khan, 'Abdul Rahman. See 'Abdul Rahman Akhtar Khan.
Akhtar Khan, 'Abdul Rahman. See 'Abdul Rahman Akhtar Khan.
Akhtar-ul-Iman
Akhtar-ul-Iman (1915-1996). An Urdu poet.
Born in Qila, Najibabad, in Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh in 1915, Akhtar-ul-Iman was a leading Urdu poet and film writer of his time. He had a major influence on modern Urdu nazm. After graduating from Delhi University, he worked in the Civil Supplies Departmant and All India Radio at Delhi. From 1945, after he moved to Mumbai (then Bombay), he started working for Hindi cinema as a script writer. His poetry is highly individualistic and innovative. He stands apart from other poets of his time in his themes, style, langauage. He preferred nazm over more popular ghazal as a means of poetic expression. Akhtar ul Iman's language is coarse and for some seemingly unpoetic. He uses coarse and mundane poetic expressions to make his message effective and realistic. His poetry strives to find a balance between the conflicting or extreme choices faced by man. He chose free verse for his nazms to make his conversational style of expression more realistic. He was strongly influenced by Meeraji and N. M. Rashid and is more closer and similar to them than other poets of his era. He was a close friend of Meeraji and Meeraji lived with him until his death. They together formed Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Adab (Circle of Friends of Poetry). Poets who belong to this circle wrote independent of the idealogy and standards set by the Progressive Writers Movement. Although they were few in numbers, they contributed significantly and had major influence on later generations of poets. It was also a starting point of Modernisnm in Urdu.
Akhtar-ul-Iman left behind a substantial legacy for a new generation of poets to follow and explored new trends and themes in modern Urdu poetry giving a new direction to the modern and contemporary Urdu nazm with emphasis on philosophical humanism.
His initial education happened at Bijnor, where he came in contact with Khurshid ul Islam (a poet and scholar who taught at Aligarh Muslim University, and developed a long association with Ralph Russell). He graduated from the Anglo-Arabic College, Delhi.
Akhtar-ul-Iman is the author of Iss Aabad Kharabe Mein, an autobiography of a famous Urdu writer that was published by the Urdu Academy, Delhi, India. He also has seven collections of poetry to his credit including Tareek Sayyara (1943); Gardyab (1946); Aabjoo (1959); Yaden (1961); Bint-e-Lamhaat (1969); Naya Ahang (1977); and Sar-o-Samaan (1983). His play Sabrang (1948) is a one verse play.
The contribution Akhtar-ul-Iman to Hindi cinema is quite significant in view of the number of landmark and hit movies he has contributed to as a script writer (dialogue, story and screenplay). His first landmark movie was Kanoon, which became a big hit of its time. Kanoon became a hit despite the fact that it had no songs or comedy sequences. This achievement was unparalleled in Hindi cinema. His other important movies where he contributed as a script writer are Dharmputra (1961), for which he received filmfare award. He also wrote lyrics for Hindi cinema, and the one movie which has lyrics written by him is Bikhare Moti.
The filmography credits for Akhtar-ul-Iman include: Chor Police (1983 - writer); Lahu Pukarega (1980 - director); Do Musafir (1978 - writer); Chandi Sona (1977 - writer); Zameer (1975 - writer); 36 Ghante (1974 - writer); Roti (1974 - writer); Naya Nasha (1973 - writer); Bada Kabutar (1973 - writer); Daag (1973 - writer); Dhund (1973 - writer); Joshila (1973 - writer); Kunwara Badan (1973 - writer); Dastaan (1972 - writer); Joroo Ka Ghulam (1972 - writer); Aadmi Aur Insaan (1969 - writer); Chirag (1969 - writer); Ittefaq (1969 - writer); Aadmi (1968 - writer); Hamraaz (1967 - writer); Patthar Ke Sanam (1967 - writer); Gaban (1966 - writer); Mera Saaya (1966 - writer); Phool Aur Patthar (1966 - writer); Bhoot Bungla (1965 - writer); Waqt (1965 - writer); Shabnam (1964 - writer); Yaadein (1964 - writer); Aaj Aur Kal (1963 - writer); Akeli Mat Jaiyo (1963 - writer); Gumrah (1963 - writer); Aaj Aur Kal (1963 - writer); Akeli Mat Jaiyo (1963 - writer); Gumrah (1963 - writer); Neeli Aankhen (1962 - writer); Dharmputra (1961 - writer); Flat No. 9 (1961 - writer); Barood (1960 - writer); Kalpana (1960 - writer); Kanoon (1960 - writer); Nirdosh (1950 - writer); Actress (1948 - writer); and Jharna (1948) - writer).
Akhtar-ul-Iman (1915-1996). An Urdu poet.
Born in Qila, Najibabad, in Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh in 1915, Akhtar-ul-Iman was a leading Urdu poet and film writer of his time. He had a major influence on modern Urdu nazm. After graduating from Delhi University, he worked in the Civil Supplies Departmant and All India Radio at Delhi. From 1945, after he moved to Mumbai (then Bombay), he started working for Hindi cinema as a script writer. His poetry is highly individualistic and innovative. He stands apart from other poets of his time in his themes, style, langauage. He preferred nazm over more popular ghazal as a means of poetic expression. Akhtar ul Iman's language is coarse and for some seemingly unpoetic. He uses coarse and mundane poetic expressions to make his message effective and realistic. His poetry strives to find a balance between the conflicting or extreme choices faced by man. He chose free verse for his nazms to make his conversational style of expression more realistic. He was strongly influenced by Meeraji and N. M. Rashid and is more closer and similar to them than other poets of his era. He was a close friend of Meeraji and Meeraji lived with him until his death. They together formed Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Adab (Circle of Friends of Poetry). Poets who belong to this circle wrote independent of the idealogy and standards set by the Progressive Writers Movement. Although they were few in numbers, they contributed significantly and had major influence on later generations of poets. It was also a starting point of Modernisnm in Urdu.
Akhtar-ul-Iman left behind a substantial legacy for a new generation of poets to follow and explored new trends and themes in modern Urdu poetry giving a new direction to the modern and contemporary Urdu nazm with emphasis on philosophical humanism.
His initial education happened at Bijnor, where he came in contact with Khurshid ul Islam (a poet and scholar who taught at Aligarh Muslim University, and developed a long association with Ralph Russell). He graduated from the Anglo-Arabic College, Delhi.
Akhtar-ul-Iman is the author of Iss Aabad Kharabe Mein, an autobiography of a famous Urdu writer that was published by the Urdu Academy, Delhi, India. He also has seven collections of poetry to his credit including Tareek Sayyara (1943); Gardyab (1946); Aabjoo (1959); Yaden (1961); Bint-e-Lamhaat (1969); Naya Ahang (1977); and Sar-o-Samaan (1983). His play Sabrang (1948) is a one verse play.
The contribution Akhtar-ul-Iman to Hindi cinema is quite significant in view of the number of landmark and hit movies he has contributed to as a script writer (dialogue, story and screenplay). His first landmark movie was Kanoon, which became a big hit of its time. Kanoon became a hit despite the fact that it had no songs or comedy sequences. This achievement was unparalleled in Hindi cinema. His other important movies where he contributed as a script writer are Dharmputra (1961), for which he received filmfare award. He also wrote lyrics for Hindi cinema, and the one movie which has lyrics written by him is Bikhare Moti.
The filmography credits for Akhtar-ul-Iman include: Chor Police (1983 - writer); Lahu Pukarega (1980 - director); Do Musafir (1978 - writer); Chandi Sona (1977 - writer); Zameer (1975 - writer); 36 Ghante (1974 - writer); Roti (1974 - writer); Naya Nasha (1973 - writer); Bada Kabutar (1973 - writer); Daag (1973 - writer); Dhund (1973 - writer); Joshila (1973 - writer); Kunwara Badan (1973 - writer); Dastaan (1972 - writer); Joroo Ka Ghulam (1972 - writer); Aadmi Aur Insaan (1969 - writer); Chirag (1969 - writer); Ittefaq (1969 - writer); Aadmi (1968 - writer); Hamraaz (1967 - writer); Patthar Ke Sanam (1967 - writer); Gaban (1966 - writer); Mera Saaya (1966 - writer); Phool Aur Patthar (1966 - writer); Bhoot Bungla (1965 - writer); Waqt (1965 - writer); Shabnam (1964 - writer); Yaadein (1964 - writer); Aaj Aur Kal (1963 - writer); Akeli Mat Jaiyo (1963 - writer); Gumrah (1963 - writer); Aaj Aur Kal (1963 - writer); Akeli Mat Jaiyo (1963 - writer); Gumrah (1963 - writer); Neeli Aankhen (1962 - writer); Dharmputra (1961 - writer); Flat No. 9 (1961 - writer); Barood (1960 - writer); Kalpana (1960 - writer); Kanoon (1960 - writer); Nirdosh (1950 - writer); Actress (1948 - writer); and Jharna (1948) - writer).
Akhund-zada
Akhund-zada (1811-1878). The first writer of original plays in Azeri Turkish.
Akhund-zada (1811-1878). The first writer of original plays in Azeri Turkish.
Akhundzada, Hibatullah
Hibatullah Akhundzada (b. 1961) is a political and religious leader who is the third Supreme Commander of the Taliban and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. He was given the title Emir-al-Mumineen (Commander of the Faithful) by Taliban which is also the title which his two predecessors had carried.
From the Kandahar province, Akhundzada belongs to the Noorzai tribe. Akhundzada has lived in Afghanistan and Pakistan for many years.
Ahundzada is well-known for his fatwas on Taliban matters. He served as the head of the Sharia courts of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Unlike many Taliban leaders, Akhundzada is more of a religious leader than a military leader. In May 2016, Akhundzada was elected as the leader of the Taliban, following the killing of the previous leader, Akhtar Mansour, in a drone strike.
Akhundzada was born in 1961 in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar Province in the Kingdom of Afghanistan. A Pashtun, he belongs to the Noorzai clan or tribe. His first name, Hibatullah, means "gift from God" in Arabic. His father, Muhammad Akhund, was a religious scholar as well as the imam of their village mosque. Not owning any land or orchards of their own, the family depended on what the congregation paid his father in cash or in a portion of their crops. Akhundzada studied under his father. The family migrated to Quetta after the Soviet invasion. Akhundzada leads a number of madrasas, or religious schools, in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province.
In the 1980s, Akhundzada was involved in the resistance against the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan. In 1994, he became one of the early members of the Taliban. After Farah Province was captured by the Taliban, Akhundzada was put in charge of fighting crime in the area. Later, he was appointed as the head of Taliban's military court in eastern Nangarhar province. Akhundzada also served as the deputy head of the Supreme Court. When the Taliban captured the capital Kabul in 1996, Akhundzada was appointed as a member of the Department of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. He later moved to Kandahar and was put in charge of the training of 100,000 students at Jihadi Madrasa, a seminary.
After the US-led coalition in 2001, Akhundzada became the head of the group's council of religious scholars. Akhundzada was later appointed as Chief Justice of the Sharia Courts of the Islamic Emirate of Aghanistan. Akhundzada also became the advisor of Mullah Omar. Rather than a military commander, he has a reputation as a religious leader who was responsible for issuing most of the Taliban's fatwas and settling religious issues among members of the Taliban. Both Mullah Omar and Mullah Mansour are known to have consulted Akhundzada on matters of fatwa.
Akhundzada is believed to have lived in Afghanistan throughout the 2001–2016 period with no travel record, though he has close ties with the Quetta-based Taliban Shura. After his promotion to deputy leader of the Taliban in 2015, Akhundzada put in place a system under which a commission would be formed under the shadow governor in every province that could investigate abusive commanders or fighters, according to Mullah Abdul Bari, a Taliban commander in Helmand.
Akhundzada was appointed as the Taliban supreme commander on 25 May 2016 as the replacement for Mullah Akhtar Mansour. Akhundzada was previously a deputy for Mansour. Mohammad Yaqoob and Sirajuddin Haqqani both worked as Akhundzada's deputies. According to sources from the Taliban, Mansour had already named Akhundzada as his successor in his will. Mullahs Abdul Razaq Akhund and Abdul Sata Akhund pledged their support to Akhundzada in December 2016.
Yousef Ahmadi, one of the Taliban's main spokesmen, stated on 20 July 2017 that Akhundzada's son Abdur Rahman was killed while carrying out a suicide attack on an Afghan military base in Gereshk in Helmand Province. An Afghan government official said that they were investigating the incident but could not confirm if Rahman was killed.
In May 2021, Akhundzada invited Afghan people to call for the withdrawal of the United States forces and for the development of an Islamic state. In August 2021, forces under Akhundzada's nominal command began a general offensive seeking to achieve a final victory in the war. During the leadership of Akhundzada, the United States troops withdrew, and the Taliban gained control of Kabul. On August,18, 2021 it was announced that based on the general amnesty issued by Akhundzada, “it was decided to release political detainees from all prisons of Afghanistan”. By that time, the Taliban had already taken control of key prisons across the country and freed thousands of inmates, including ISIS fighters, Al-Qaeda members and senior Taliban figures.
‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
‘Alawi, Ahmad al- (Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi) (1869 - July 14, 1934). Algerian Sufi and poet. Called by some, “one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times,” al-‘Alawi overcame humble origins and a lack of formal education to create a substantial religious clientele with disciples and affiliated zawiyahs throughout the Maghrib, Mashriq, East Africa, Yemen, and even Europe. His story is one of remarkable spiritual renewal within the idiom of Sufism in an era when Sufis and Sufism were under attack by the reformist Salafiyah movement.
Ahmad al-‘Alawi was born in Mostaganem in western Algeria during the period of intense colonization. The popular appeal of his teachings and the response they elicited were in part linked to the travails of the Muslim population under the French civilian administration. Al-‘Alawi’s great-grandfather had been a local notable. However, the family had fallen on hard times, and his father’s death when the young man was only sixteen forced him into the profession of cobbler, ending what minimal Islamic education he had received. Al-‘Alawi’s first association with formal Sufism came in the 1880s when he joined the ‘Isawi tariqah. After attending Isawiyah dhikr gatherings and participating in their more extravagant practices, such as snake charming, al-‘Alawi began to doubt the spiritual merit of the tariqah. By the time he encountered the celebrated Darqawi Shadhili shaykh, Muhammad al-Buzidi (d. 1909), al-‘Alawi had already distanced himself from the ‘Isawiyah.
Received into the Darqawa tariqah at the hands of al-Buzidi, who also instructed the novice, al-‘Alawi was a muqaddam (one authorized to initiate members into a particular tariqah) by the age of twenty-five, with authority to initiate others into the order.
Al-‘Alawi apparently remained in the Oran until 1909, the year his spiritual master al-Buzidi died. Then he embarked on a journey to Tunis, Tripoli, and Istanbul, where he lingered until 1910. The Ottoman Empire was at that time rent by the political upheavals of the Young Turk revolution that deposed the sultan in April 1909. His experiences in the Ottoman capital during the Committee of Union and Progress’ rule appear to have reinforced al-‘Alawi’s conservative orientation. He returned to his native land shortly thereafter and only returned to the Mashriq for the hajj to Mecca and Medina, visiting Jerusalem and Damascus on the way, just before his death in 1934.
In the Oran, al-‘Alawi’s followers persuaded him after 1909 to serve as head shaykh. Some five years later he established an order independent from the Moroccan Darqawa. In Tidgitt, Mostaganem’s purely Muslim quarter, a great zawiyah was constructed overlooking the sea and drew growing numbers of disciples. The master’s position on the Muslims’ relationship with the colonial regime and on Salafiyah teachings caused conflict with both the Europeans and fellow Muslims. Denouncing Algerians who had become naturalized French citizens, the shaykh also decried westernization, secularism, and modernization. As a riposte to the reformist publication Al-shihab, al-‘Alawi created a weekly newspaper to defend Sufism against its detractors. By his death, al-‘Alawi had written some fifteen works, mostly on Sufism, as well as a diwan of poetry. Some of these works exist only in manuscript form even today and are found at the Tidgitt zawiyah, where the shaykh was buried in 1934.
The Alawiyya spread throughout Algeria, as well as in other parts of North Africa, as a result of Sheikh al-Alawi's travels, preaching and writing, and through the activities of his muqaddams (representatives). By the time of Sheikh al-Alawi's death in 1934, he had become one of the best known and most celebrated shaykhs of the century.
The Alawiyya was one of the first Sufi orders to establish a presence in Europe, notably among Algerians in France and Yemenis in Wales. Sheikh Al-Alawi himself traveled to France in 1926, and led the first communal prayer to inaugurate the newly built Paris Mosque in the presence of the French president. Sheikh Al-Alawi understood French well, though he was reluctant to speak it.
The Alawiyya branch also spread as far as Damascus, Syria where an authorization was given to Muhammad al-Hashimi who spread the Alawi branch all throughout the lands of the Levant.
Sheikh Al-Alawi was a Sufi shaykh in the classic Darqawi Shadhili tradition, though his order differed somewhat from the norm in its use of the systematic practice of khalwa and in laying special emphasis on the invocation of the Supreme Name [of God].
In addition to being a classic Sufi shaykh, Sheikh al-Alawi addressed the problems of modern Algerians using modern methods. As well as writing poetry and books on established Sufi topics, he founded and directed two weekly newspapers, the short-lived Lisan al-Din (Language of Faith) in 1912, and the longer-lived Al-balagh al-jazairi (Algerian Messenger) in 1926.
In his preaching and his writings, Sheikh al-Alawi attempted to reconcile Islam and modernity. On the one hand, he criticized Westernization, both at a symbolic level (by discouraging the adoption of Western costumes that lead to ego attachment) and at a practical level (by attacking the growing consumption of alcohol among Algerian Muslims). On the other hand, he encouraged his followers to send their children to school to learn French, and even favored the translation of the Koran into French and Berber for the sake of making it more accessible, a position that was at that time most controversial.
Although Sheikh al-Alawi showed unusual respect for Christians, and was in some ways an early practitioner of inter-religious dialogue, the centerpiece of his message to Christians was that if only they would abandon the doctrines of the trinity and of incarnation "nothing would then separate us."
The great size of his following may be explained by the combination of classic Sufism with engagement in contemporary issues, combined with his own personal charisma, to which many sources, both Algerian and French, speak.
Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
“one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times” see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
‘Alawi, Ahmad al- (Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi) (1869 - July 14, 1934). Algerian Sufi and poet. Called by some, “one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times,” al-‘Alawi overcame humble origins and a lack of formal education to create a substantial religious clientele with disciples and affiliated zawiyahs throughout the Maghrib, Mashriq, East Africa, Yemen, and even Europe. His story is one of remarkable spiritual renewal within the idiom of Sufism in an era when Sufis and Sufism were under attack by the reformist Salafiyah movement.
Ahmad al-‘Alawi was born in Mostaganem in western Algeria during the period of intense colonization. The popular appeal of his teachings and the response they elicited were in part linked to the travails of the Muslim population under the French civilian administration. Al-‘Alawi’s great-grandfather had been a local notable. However, the family had fallen on hard times, and his father’s death when the young man was only sixteen forced him into the profession of cobbler, ending what minimal Islamic education he had received. Al-‘Alawi’s first association with formal Sufism came in the 1880s when he joined the ‘Isawi tariqah. After attending Isawiyah dhikr gatherings and participating in their more extravagant practices, such as snake charming, al-‘Alawi began to doubt the spiritual merit of the tariqah. By the time he encountered the celebrated Darqawi Shadhili shaykh, Muhammad al-Buzidi (d. 1909), al-‘Alawi had already distanced himself from the ‘Isawiyah.
Received into the Darqawa tariqah at the hands of al-Buzidi, who also instructed the novice, al-‘Alawi was a muqaddam (one authorized to initiate members into a particular tariqah) by the age of twenty-five, with authority to initiate others into the order.
Al-‘Alawi apparently remained in the Oran until 1909, the year his spiritual master al-Buzidi died. Then he embarked on a journey to Tunis, Tripoli, and Istanbul, where he lingered until 1910. The Ottoman Empire was at that time rent by the political upheavals of the Young Turk revolution that deposed the sultan in April 1909. His experiences in the Ottoman capital during the Committee of Union and Progress’ rule appear to have reinforced al-‘Alawi’s conservative orientation. He returned to his native land shortly thereafter and only returned to the Mashriq for the hajj to Mecca and Medina, visiting Jerusalem and Damascus on the way, just before his death in 1934.
In the Oran, al-‘Alawi’s followers persuaded him after 1909 to serve as head shaykh. Some five years later he established an order independent from the Moroccan Darqawa. In Tidgitt, Mostaganem’s purely Muslim quarter, a great zawiyah was constructed overlooking the sea and drew growing numbers of disciples. The master’s position on the Muslims’ relationship with the colonial regime and on Salafiyah teachings caused conflict with both the Europeans and fellow Muslims. Denouncing Algerians who had become naturalized French citizens, the shaykh also decried westernization, secularism, and modernization. As a riposte to the reformist publication Al-shihab, al-‘Alawi created a weekly newspaper to defend Sufism against its detractors. By his death, al-‘Alawi had written some fifteen works, mostly on Sufism, as well as a diwan of poetry. Some of these works exist only in manuscript form even today and are found at the Tidgitt zawiyah, where the shaykh was buried in 1934.
The Alawiyya spread throughout Algeria, as well as in other parts of North Africa, as a result of Sheikh al-Alawi's travels, preaching and writing, and through the activities of his muqaddams (representatives). By the time of Sheikh al-Alawi's death in 1934, he had become one of the best known and most celebrated shaykhs of the century.
The Alawiyya was one of the first Sufi orders to establish a presence in Europe, notably among Algerians in France and Yemenis in Wales. Sheikh Al-Alawi himself traveled to France in 1926, and led the first communal prayer to inaugurate the newly built Paris Mosque in the presence of the French president. Sheikh Al-Alawi understood French well, though he was reluctant to speak it.
The Alawiyya branch also spread as far as Damascus, Syria where an authorization was given to Muhammad al-Hashimi who spread the Alawi branch all throughout the lands of the Levant.
Sheikh Al-Alawi was a Sufi shaykh in the classic Darqawi Shadhili tradition, though his order differed somewhat from the norm in its use of the systematic practice of khalwa and in laying special emphasis on the invocation of the Supreme Name [of God].
In addition to being a classic Sufi shaykh, Sheikh al-Alawi addressed the problems of modern Algerians using modern methods. As well as writing poetry and books on established Sufi topics, he founded and directed two weekly newspapers, the short-lived Lisan al-Din (Language of Faith) in 1912, and the longer-lived Al-balagh al-jazairi (Algerian Messenger) in 1926.
In his preaching and his writings, Sheikh al-Alawi attempted to reconcile Islam and modernity. On the one hand, he criticized Westernization, both at a symbolic level (by discouraging the adoption of Western costumes that lead to ego attachment) and at a practical level (by attacking the growing consumption of alcohol among Algerian Muslims). On the other hand, he encouraged his followers to send their children to school to learn French, and even favored the translation of the Koran into French and Berber for the sake of making it more accessible, a position that was at that time most controversial.
Although Sheikh al-Alawi showed unusual respect for Christians, and was in some ways an early practitioner of inter-religious dialogue, the centerpiece of his message to Christians was that if only they would abandon the doctrines of the trinity and of incarnation "nothing would then separate us."
The great size of his following may be explained by the combination of classic Sufism with engagement in contemporary issues, combined with his own personal charisma, to which many sources, both Algerian and French, speak.
Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
“one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times” see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
Albategnius
Albategnius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albategnius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albatenius
Albatenius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albatenius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albohali
Albohali. See Abu ‘Ali Yahya al-Khayyat.
Albohali. See Abu ‘Ali Yahya al-Khayyat.
Albohazen
Albohazen. See Abu ‘l-Hasan ibn Abi ‘l-Rijal.
Albohazen. See Abu ‘l-Hasan ibn Abi ‘l-Rijal.
Albubather
Albubather. See Abu Bakr ibn al-Khasib.
Albubather. See Abu Bakr ibn al-Khasib.
Albuleizor
Albuleizor. See Ibn Zuhr.
Albuleizor. See Ibn Zuhr.
Albumasar
Albumasar. See Abu Ma‘shar al-Balkhi.
Albumasar. See Abu Ma‘shar al-Balkhi.
Alcabitius
Alcabitius. See ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Qabisi.
Alcabitius. See ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Qabisi.
Alcindor, Lew
Alcindor, Lew. See Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Alcindor, Lew. See Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias (in Arabic, al-Iskandar al-Afrudisi). As was the case in medieval Europe and at the time of the Renaissance, the Peripatetic philosopher was regarded in Islamic countries as the most authoritative of the ancient commentators of Aristotle. His materialistic arguments against the immortality of the human soul gave rise to wide discussions which spread from Islamic to Christian learned circles. A major theme in the correspondence between Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen and the Sufi Ibn Sab‘in is the difference between Aristotle and Alexander over this question.
Alexander of Aphrodisias was the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was styled, by way of pre-eminence, "the expositor" Alexander was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria and came to Athens towards the end of the second century. He was a student of the two Stoic, or possibly Peripatetic, philosophers Sosigenes and Herminus, and perhaps of Aristotle of Mytilene. At Athens, he became head of the Lyceum and lectured on Peripatetic philosophy. Alexander's dedication of On Fate to Septimius Severus and Caracalla, in gratitude for his position at Athens, indicates a date between 198 and 209. A contemporary inscription from Aphrodisias confirms that Alexander was head of one of the Schools at Athens and gives his full name as Titus Aurelius Alexander. His full nomenclature shows that his grandfather or other ancestor was probably given Roman citizenship by the emperor Antoninus Pius, while proconsul of Asia. The inscription honors his father, also called Alexander and also a philosopher. This fact makes it plausible that some of the suspect works that form part of Alexander's corpus should be ascribed to his father.
Alexander composed several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, in which he sought to escape a syncretistic tendency and to recover the pure doctrines of Aristotle. His commentaries are still extant on Prior Analytics (Book 1), Topics, Meteorology, Sense and Sensibilia, and Metaphysics (Books 1-5, together with an abridgment of his commentary on the remaining books).
There are several original writings by Alexander still extant. The most important of these are a work entitled On Fate, in which Alexander argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (nous hulikos) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of the soul's immortality. He identified the active intellect (nous poietikos), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God.
The commentaries of Alexander were greatly esteemed among the Arabs, who translated many of them. Alexander was heavily quoted by Maimonides.
In 1210, the Church Council of Paris issued a condemnation, which probably targeted the writings of Alexander among others.
In the early Renaissance, Alexander's doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by Pietro Pomponazzi (against the Thomists and the Averroists), and by his successor Cesare Cremonini. This school is known as Alexandrists.
Alexander's band, an optical phenomenon, is named after him.
Iskandar al-Afrudisi, al- see Alexander of Aphrodisias
The Expositor see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Titus Aurelius Alexander see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias (in Arabic, al-Iskandar al-Afrudisi). As was the case in medieval Europe and at the time of the Renaissance, the Peripatetic philosopher was regarded in Islamic countries as the most authoritative of the ancient commentators of Aristotle. His materialistic arguments against the immortality of the human soul gave rise to wide discussions which spread from Islamic to Christian learned circles. A major theme in the correspondence between Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen and the Sufi Ibn Sab‘in is the difference between Aristotle and Alexander over this question.
Alexander of Aphrodisias was the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was styled, by way of pre-eminence, "the expositor" Alexander was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria and came to Athens towards the end of the second century. He was a student of the two Stoic, or possibly Peripatetic, philosophers Sosigenes and Herminus, and perhaps of Aristotle of Mytilene. At Athens, he became head of the Lyceum and lectured on Peripatetic philosophy. Alexander's dedication of On Fate to Septimius Severus and Caracalla, in gratitude for his position at Athens, indicates a date between 198 and 209. A contemporary inscription from Aphrodisias confirms that Alexander was head of one of the Schools at Athens and gives his full name as Titus Aurelius Alexander. His full nomenclature shows that his grandfather or other ancestor was probably given Roman citizenship by the emperor Antoninus Pius, while proconsul of Asia. The inscription honors his father, also called Alexander and also a philosopher. This fact makes it plausible that some of the suspect works that form part of Alexander's corpus should be ascribed to his father.
Alexander composed several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, in which he sought to escape a syncretistic tendency and to recover the pure doctrines of Aristotle. His commentaries are still extant on Prior Analytics (Book 1), Topics, Meteorology, Sense and Sensibilia, and Metaphysics (Books 1-5, together with an abridgment of his commentary on the remaining books).
There are several original writings by Alexander still extant. The most important of these are a work entitled On Fate, in which Alexander argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (nous hulikos) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of the soul's immortality. He identified the active intellect (nous poietikos), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God.
The commentaries of Alexander were greatly esteemed among the Arabs, who translated many of them. Alexander was heavily quoted by Maimonides.
In 1210, the Church Council of Paris issued a condemnation, which probably targeted the writings of Alexander among others.
In the early Renaissance, Alexander's doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by Pietro Pomponazzi (against the Thomists and the Averroists), and by his successor Cesare Cremonini. This school is known as Alexandrists.
Alexander's band, an optical phenomenon, is named after him.
Iskandar al-Afrudisi, al- see Alexander of Aphrodisias
The Expositor see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Titus Aurelius Alexander see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (356 B.C.T. - June 13, 323 B.C.T.). Macedonian general and empire builder. It is generally agreed that the epithet “the two-horned” in Qur’an 18:82-98 is to be identified with Alexander the Great. There it is said that he was given power on earth and that he built a wall or rampart of iron and brass against the incursions of Gog and Magog.
Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greek King (basileus) of Macedon (336–323 B.C.T.). He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, adding it to Macedon's European territories.
Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia (b. 356 B.C.T., Pella, Macedonia—d. June 13, 323 B.C.T., Babylon), king of Macedonia (336–323 B.C.T.). He overthrew the Persian Empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.
Alexander was born in 356 B.C.T. at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus). From age 13 to 16 he was taught by Aristotle, who inspired him with an interest in philosophy, medicine, and scientific investigation; but he was later to advance beyond his teacher’s narrow precept that non-Greeks should be treated as slaves. Left in charge of Macedonia in 340 during Philip’s attack on Byzantium, Alexander defeated the Maedi, a Thracian people; two years later he commanded the left wing at the Battle of Chaeronea, in which Philip defeated the allied Greek states, and displayed personal courage in breaking the Sacred Band of Thebes. A year later Philip divorced Olympias; and, after a quarrel at a feast held to celebrate his father’s new marriage, Alexander and his mother fled to Epirus, and Alexander later went to Illyria. Shortly afterward, father and son were reconciled and Alexander returned; but his position as heir was jeopardized.
In 336, however, on Philip’s assassination, Alexander, acclaimed by the army, succeeded without opposition. He at once executed the princes of Lyncestis, alleged to be behind Philip’s murder, along with all possible rivals and the whole of the faction opposed to him. He then marched south, recovered a wavering Thessaly, and at an assembly of the Greek League at Corinth was appointed generalissimo for the forthcoming invasion of Asia, already planned and initiated by Philip. Returning to Macedonia by way of Delphi (where the Pythian priestess acclaimed him “invincible”), he advanced into Thrace in spring 335 and, after forcing the Shipka Pass and crushing the Triballi, crossed the Danube to disperse the Getae; turning west, he then defeated and shattered a coalition of Illyrians who had invaded Macedonia. Meanwhile, a rumor of his death had precipitated a revolt of Theban democrats; other Greek states favored Thebes, and the Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, voted help. In 14 days Alexander marched 240 miles from Pelion (near modern Korçë, Albania) in Illyria to Thebes. When the Thebans refused to surrender, he made an entry and razed their city to the ground, sparing only temples and Pindar’s house; 6,000 were killed and all survivors sold into slavery. The other Greek states were cowed by this severity, and Alexander could afford to treat Athens leniently. Macedonian garrisons were left in Corinth, Chalcis, and the Cadmea (the citadel of Thebes).
From his accession Alexander had set his mind on the Persian expedition. He had grown up with the idea. Moreover, he needed the wealth of Persia if he was to maintain the army built by Philip and pay off the 500 talents he owed. The exploits of the Ten Thousand, Greek soldiers of fortune, and of Agesilaus of Sparta, in successfully campaigning in Persian territory had revealed the vulnerability of the Persian Empire. With a good cavalry force Alexander could expect to defeat any Persian army. In spring 334 he crossed the Dardanelles, leaving Antipater, who had already faithfully served his father, as his deputy in Europe with over 13,000 men; he himself commanded about 30,000 foot and over 5,000 cavalry, of whom nearly 14,000 were Macedonians and about 7,000 allies sent by the Greek League. This army was to prove remarkable for its balanced combination of arms. Much work fell on the lightarmed Cretan and Macedonian archers, Thracians, and the Agrianian javelin men. But in pitched battle the striking force was the cavalry, and the core of the army, should the issue still remain undecided after the cavalry charge, was the infantry phalanx, 9,000 strong, armed with 13-foot spears and shields, and the 3,000 men of the royal battalions, the hypaspists. Alexander’s second in command was Parmenio, who had secured a foothold in Asia Minor during Philip’s lifetime; many of his family and supporters were entrenched in positions of responsibility. The army was accompanied by surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court officials, and historians; from the outset Alexander seems to have envisaged an unlimited operation.
After visiting Ilium (Troy), a romantic gesture inspired by Homer, he confronted his first Persian army, led by three satraps (Persian provincial governors), at the Granicus (modern Kocabaş) River, near the Sea of Marmara (May/June 334). The Persian plan to tempt Alexander across the river and kill him in the melee almost succeeded; but the Persian line broke, and Alexander’s victory was complete. Darius’ Greek mercenaries were largely massacred, but 2,000 survivors were sent back to Macedonia in chains. This victory exposed western Asia Minor to the Macedonians, and most cities hastened to open their gates. The tyrants were expelled and (in contrast to Macedonian policy in Greece) democracies were installed. Alexander thus underlined his Panhellenic policy, already symbolized in the sending of 300 panoplies (sets of armour) taken at the Granicus as an offering dedicated to Athena at Athens by “Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks (except the Spartans) from the barbarians who inhabit Asia.” (This formula, cited by the Greek historian Arrian in his history of Alexander’s campaigns, is noteworthy for its omission of any reference to Macedonia.) But the cities remained de facto under Alexander, and his appointment of Calas as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia reflected his claim to succeed the Great King of Persia. When Miletus, encouraged by the proximity of the Persian fleet, resisted, Alexander took it by assault; but, refusing a naval battle, he disbanded his own costly navy and announced that he would “defeat the Persian fleet on land,” by occupying the coastal cities. In Caria, Halicarnassus resisted and was stormed; but Ada, the widow and sister of the satrap Idrieus, adopted Alexander as her son and, after expelling her brother Pixodarus, Alexander restored her to her satrapy. Some parts of Caria held out, however, until 332.
In the winter of 334–333 Alexander conquered western Asia Minor, subduing the hill tribes of Lycia and Pisidia; and in the spring of 333 he advanced along the coastal road to Perga, passing the cliffs of Mt. Climax, thanks to a fortunate change of wind. The fall in the level of the sea was interpreted as a mark of divine favor by Alexander’s flatterers, including the historian Callisthenes. At Gordium in Phrygia, tradition records his cutting of the Gordian knot, which could only be loosed by the man who was to rule Asia; but this story may be apocryphal or at least distorted. At this point Alexander benefitted from the sudden death of Memnon, the competent Greek commander of the Persian fleet. From Gordium he pushed on to Ancyra (modern Ankara) and thence south through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Boğazi); a fever held him up for a time in Cilicia. Meanwhile, Darius with his Grand Army had advanced northward on the eastern side of Mt. Amanus. Intelligence on both sides was faulty, and Alexander was already encamped by Myriandrus (near modern Iskenderun, Turkey) when he learned that Darius was astride his line of communications at Issus, north of Alexander’s position (autumn 333). Turning, Alexander found Darius drawn up along the Pinarus River. In the battle that followed, Alexander won a decisive victory. The struggle turned into a Persian rout and Darius fled, leaving his family in Alexander’s hands; the women were treated with chivalrous care.
From Issus, Alexander marched south into Syria and Phoenicia, his object being to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases and so to destroy it as an effective fighting force. The Phoenician cities Marathus and Aradus came over quietly, and Parmenio was sent ahead to secure Damascus and its rich booty, including Darius’ war chest. In reply to a letter from Darius offering peace, Alexander replied arrogantly, recapitulating the historic wrongs of Greece and demanding unconditional surrender to himself as lord of Asia. After taking Byblos (modern Jubayl) and Sidon (Arabic Ṣaydā), he met with a check at Tyre, where he was refused entry into the island city. He thereupon prepared to use all methods of siegecraft to take it, but the Tyrians resisted, holding out for seven months. In the meantime (winter 333–332) the Persians had counterattacked by land in Asia Minor—where they were defeated by Antigonus, the satrap of Greater Phrygia—and by sea, recapturing a number of cities and islands.
While the siege of Tyre was in progress, Darius sent a new offer: he would pay a huge ransom of 10,000 talents for his family and cede all his lands west of the Euphrates. “I would accept,” Parmenio is reported to have said, “were I Alexander”; “I too,” was the famous retort, “were I Parmenio.” The storming of Tyre in July 332 was Alexander’s greatest military achievement; it was attended with great carnage and the sale of the women and children into slavery. Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a sortie. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to visit Jerusalem.
In November 332 Alexander reached Egypt. The people welcomed him as their deliverer, and the Persian satrap (provincial governor) Mazaces wisely surrendered. At Memphis, Alexander sacrificed to Apis, the Greek term for Hapi, the sacred Egyptian bull, and was crowned with the traditional double crown of the pharaohs; the native priests were placated and their religion encouraged. He spent the winter organizing Egypt, where he employed Egyptian governors, keeping the army under a separate Macedonian command. He founded the city of Alexandria near the western arm of the Nile on a fine site between the sea and Lake Mareotis, protected by the island of Pharos, and had it laid out by the Rhodian architect Deinocrates. He is also said to have sent an expedition to discover the causes of the flooding of the Nile. From Alexandria he marched along the coast to Paraetonium and from there inland to visit the celebrated oracle of the god Amon (at Sīwah); the difficult journey was later embroidered with flattering legends. On his reaching the oracle in its oasis, the priest gave him the traditional salutation of a pharaoh, as son of Amon; Alexander consulted the god on the success of his expedition but revealed the reply to no one. Later the incident was to contribute to the story that he was the son of Zeus and, thus, to his “deification.” In spring 331 he returned to Tyre, appointed a Macedonian provincial governor for Syria, and prepared to advance into Mesopotamia. His conquest of Egypt had completed his control of the whole eastern Mediterranean coast.
By July 331 Alexander was at Thapsacus on the Euphrates. Instead of taking the direct route down the river to Babylon, he made across northern Mesopotamia toward the Tigris, and Darius, learning of this move from an advance force sent under Mazaeus to the Euphrates crossing, marched up the Tigris to oppose him. The decisive battle of the war was fought on October 31, on the plain of Gaugamela between Nineveh and Arbela. Alexander pursued the defeated Persian forces for 35 miles to Arbela, but Darius escaped with his Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries into Media.
Alexander now occupied Babylon, city and province; Mazaeus, who surrendered it, was confirmed as satrap in conjunction with a Macedonian troop commander, and quite exceptionally was granted the right to coin. As in Egypt, the local priesthood was encouraged. Susa, the capital, also surrendered, releasing huge treasures amounting to 50,000 gold talents; here Alexander established Darius’ family in comfort. Crushing the mountain tribe of the Ouxians, he now pressed on over the Zagros range into Persia proper and, successfully turning the Pass of the Persian Gates, held by the satrap Ariobarzanes, he entered Persepolis and Pasargadae. At Persepolis he ceremonially burned down the palace of Xerxes, as a symbol that the Panhellenic war of revenge was at an end; for such seems the probable significance of an act that tradition later explained as a drunken frolic inspired by Thaïs, an Athenian courtesan. In spring 330 Alexander marched north into Media and occupied its capital Ecbatana. The Thessalians and Greek allies were sent home; henceforward he was waging a purely personal war.
As Mazaeus’ appointment indicated, Alexander’s views on the empire were changing. He had come to envisage a joint ruling people consisting of Macedonians and Persians, and this served to augment the misunderstanding that now arose between him and his people. Before continuing his pursuit of Darius, who had retreated into Bactria, he assembled all the Persian treasure and entrusted it to Harpalus, who was to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer. Parmenio was also left behind in Media to control communications; the presence of this older man had perhaps become irksome.
In midsummer 330 Alexander set out for the eastern provinces at a high speed via Rhagae (modern Rayy, near Tehrān) and the Caspian Gates, where he learned that Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, had deposed Darius. After a skirmish near modern Shāhrūd, the usurper had Darius stabbed and left him to die. Alexander sent his body for burial with due honors in the royal tombs at Persepolis.
Darius’ death left no obstacle to Alexander’s claim to be Great King, and a Rhodian inscription of this year (330) calls him “lord of Asia”—i.e., of the Persian Empire; soon afterward his Asian coins carry the title of king. Crossing the Elburz Mountains to the Caspian, he seized Zadracarta in Hyrcania and received the submission of a group of satraps and Persian notables, some of whom he confirmed in their offices; in a diversion westward, perhaps to modern Āmol, he reduced the Mardi, a mountain people who inhabited the Elburz Mountains. He also accepted the surrender of Darius’ Greek mercenaries. His advance eastward was now rapid. In Aria he reduced Satibarzanes, who had offered submission only to revolt, and he founded Alexandria of the Arians (modern Herāt). At Phrada in Drangiana (either near modern Nad-e ʿAli in Seistan or farther north at Farah), he at last took steps to destroy Parmenio and his family. Philotas, Parmenio’s son, commander of the elite Companion cavalry, was implicated in an alleged plot against Alexander’s life, condemned by the army, and executed; and a secret message was sent to Cleander, Parmenio’s second in command, who obediently assassinated him. This ruthless action excited widespread horror but strengthened Alexander’s position relative to his critics and those whom he regarded as his father’s men. All Parmenio’s adherents were now eliminated and men close to Alexander promoted. The Companion cavalry was reorganized in two sections, each containing four squadrons (now known as hipparchies); one group was commanded by Alexander’s oldest friend, Hephaestion, the other by Cleitus, an older man. From Phrada, Alexander pressed on during the winter of 330–329 up the valley of the Helmand River, through Arachosia, and over the mountains past the site of modern Kābul into the country of the Paropamisadae, where he founded Alexandria by the Caucasus.
Bessus was now in Bactria raising a national revolt in the eastern satrapies with the usurped title of Great King. Crossing the Hindu Kush northward over the Khawak Pass (11,650 feet), Alexander brought his army, despite food shortages, to Drapsaca (sometimes identified with modern Banu [Andarab], probably farther north at Qunduz); outflanked, Bessus fled beyond the Oxus (modern Amu Darya), and Alexander, marching west to Bactra-Zariaspa (modern Balkh [Wazirabad] in Afghanistan), appointed loyal satraps in Bactria and Aria. Crossing the Oxus, he sent his general Ptolemy in pursuit of Bessus, who had meanwhile been overthrown by the Sogdian Spitamenes. Bessus was captured, flogged, and sent to Bactra, where he was later mutilated after the Persian manner (losing his nose and ears); in due course he was publicly executed at Ecbatana.
From Maracanda (modern Samarkand) Alexander advanced by way of Cyropolis to the Jaxartes (modern Syrdarya), the boundary of the Persian Empire. There he broke the opposition of the Scythian nomads by his use of catapults and, after defeating them in a battle on the north bank of the river, pursued them into the interior. On the site of modern Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes, he founded a city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai, a people of the Śaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of 328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his campaigns. Later in the same year he attacked Oxyartes and the remaining barons who held out in the hills of Paraetacene (modern Tadzhikistan); volunteers seized the crag on which Oxyartes had his stronghold, and among the captives was his daughter, Roxana. In reconciliation Alexander married her, and the rest of his opponents were either won over or crushed.
An incident that occurred at Maracanda widened the breach between Alexander and many of his Macedonians. He murdered Cleitus, one of his most trusted commanders, in a drunken quarrel; but his excessive display of remorse led the army to pass a decree convicting Cleitus posthumously of treason. The event marked a step in Alexander’s progress toward Eastern absolutism, and this growing attitude found its outward expression in his use of Persian royal dress. Shortly afterward, at Bactra, he attempted to impose the Persian court ceremonial, involving prostration (proskynesis), on the Greeks and Macedonians too; but to them this custom, habitual for Persians entering the king’s presence, implied an act of worship and was intolerable before a man. Even Callisthenes, historian and nephew of Aristotle, whose ostentatious flattery had perhaps encouraged Alexander to see himself in the role of a god, refused to abase himself. Macedonian laughter caused the experiment to founder, and Alexander abandoned it. Shortly afterward, however, Callisthenes was held to be privy to a conspiracy among the royal pages and was executed (or died in prison; accounts vary); resentment of this action alienated sympathy from Alexander within the Peripatetic school of philosophers, with which Callisthenes had close connections.
In early summer 327 Alexander left Bactria with a reinforced army under a reorganized command. If Plutarch’s figure of 120,000 men has any reality, however, it must include all kinds of auxiliary services, together with muleteers, camel drivers, medical corps, peddlers, entertainers, women, and children; the fighting strength perhaps stood at about 35,000. Recrossing the Hindu Kush, probably by Bamiyan and the Ghorband Valley, Alexander divided his forces. Half the army with the baggage under Hephaestion and Perdiccas, both cavalry commanders, was sent through the Khyber Pass, while he himself led the rest, together with his siege train, through the hills to the north. His advance through Swāt and Gandhāra was marked by the storming of the almost impregnable pinnacle of Aornos, the modern Pir-Sar, a few miles west of the Indus and north of the Buner River, an impressive feat of siegecraft. In spring 326, crossing the Indus near Attock, Alexander entered Taxila, whose ruler, Taxiles, furnished elephants and troops in return for aid against his rival Porus, who ruled the lands between the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum) and the Acesines (modern Chenāb). In June Alexander fought his last great battle on the left bank of the Hydaspes. He founded two cities there, Alexandria Nicaea (to celebrate his victory) and Bucephala (named after his horse Bucephalus, which died there); and Porus became his ally.
How much Alexander knew of India beyond the Hyphasis (probably the modern Beas) is uncertain; there is no conclusive proof that he had heard of the Ganges. But he was anxious to press on farther, and he had advanced to the Hyphasis when his army mutinied, refusing to go farther in the tropical rain; they were weary in body and spirit, and Coenus, one of Alexander’s four chief marshals, acted as their spokesman. On finding the army adamant, Alexander agreed to turn back.
On the Hyphasis he erected 12 altars to the 12 Olympian gods, and on the Hydaspes he built a fleet of 800 to 1,000 ships. Leaving Porus, he then proceeded down the river and into the Indus, with half his forces on shipboard and half marching in three columns down the two banks. The fleet was commanded by Nearchus, and Alexander’s own captain was Onesicritus; both later wrote accounts of the campaign. The march was attended with much fighting and heavy, pitiless slaughter; at the storming of one town of the Malli near the Hydraotes (Ravi) River, Alexander received a severe wound which left him weakened.
On reaching Patala, located at the head of the Indus delta, he built a harbor and docks and explored both arms of the Indus, which probably then ran into the Rann of Kutch. He planned to lead part of his forces back by land, while the rest in perhaps 100 to 150 ships under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan with naval experience, made a voyage of exploration along the Persian Gulf. Local opposition led Nearchus to set sail in September (325), and he was held up for three weeks until he could pick up the northeast monsoon in late October. In September Alexander too set out along the coast through Gedrosia (modern Baluchistan), but he was soon compelled by mountainous country to turn inland, thus failing in his project to establish food depots for the fleet. Craterus, a high-ranking officer, already had been sent off with the baggage and siege train, the elephants, and the sick and wounded, together with three battalions of the phalanx, by way of the Mulla Pass, Quetta, and Kandahar into the Helmand Valley; from there he was to march through Drangiana to rejoin the main army on the Amanis (modern Minab) River in Carmania. Alexander’s march through Gedrosia proved disastrous; waterless desert and shortage of food and fuel caused great suffering, and many, especially women and children, perished in a sudden monsoon flood while encamped in a wadi. At length, at the Amanis, he was rejoined by Nearchus and the fleet, which also had suffered losses.
Alexander the Great’s conquests freed the West from the menace of Persian rule and spread Greek culture. Alexander now proceeded farther with the policy of replacing senior officials and executing defaulting governors on which he had already embarked before leaving India. Between 326 and 324 over a third of his satraps were superseded and six were put to death, including the Persian satraps of Persis, Susiana, Carmania, and Paraetacene; three generals in Media, including Cleander, the brother of Coenus (who had died a little earlier), were accused of extortion and summoned to Carmania, where they were arrested, tried, and executed. How far the rigor that from now onward Alexander displayed against his governors represents exemplary punishment for gross maladministration during his absence and how far the elimination of men he had come to distrust (as in the case of Philotas and Parmenio) is debatable; but the ancient sources generally favorable to him comment adversely on his severity.
In spring 324 he was back in Susa, capital of Elam and administrative centre of the Persian Empire; the story of his journey through Carmania in a drunken revel, dressed as Dionysus, is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal. He found that his treasurer, Harpalus, evidently fearing punishment for peculation, had absconded with 6,000 mercenaries and 5,000 talents to Greece; arrested in Athens, he escaped and later was murdered in Crete. At Susa Alexander held a feast to celebrate the seizure of the Persian Empire, at which, in furtherance of his policy of fusing Macedonians and Persians into one master race, he and 80 of his officers took Persian wives; he and Hephaestion married Darius’ daughters Barsine (also called Stateira) and Drypetis, respectively, and 10,000 of his soldiers with native wives were given generous dowries.
This policy of racial fusion brought increasing friction to Alexander’s relations with his Macedonians, who had no sympathy for his changed concept of the empire. His determination to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the administration of the provinces was bitterly resented. This discontent was now fanned by the arrival of 30,000 native youths who had received a Macedonian military training and by the introduction of Orientals from Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, and other parts of the empire into the Companion cavalry; whether Orientals had previously served with the Companions is uncertain, but if so they must have formed separate squadrons. In addition, Persian nobles had been accepted into the royal cavalry bodyguard. Peucestas, the new governor of Persis, gave this policy full support to flatter Alexander; but most Macedonians saw it as a threat to their own privileged position.
The issue came to a head at Opis (324), when Alexander’s decision to send home Macedonian veterans under Craterus was interpreted as a move toward transferring the seat of power to Asia. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard; but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians instead, the opposition broke down. An emotional scene of reconciliation was followed by a vast banquet with 9,000 guests to celebrate the ending of the misunderstanding and the partnership in government of Macedonians and Persians—but not, as has been argued, the incorporation of all the subject peoples as partners in the commonwealth. Ten thousand veterans were now sent back to Macedonia with gifts, and the crisis was surmounted.
In summer 324 Alexander attempted to solve another problem, that of the wandering mercenaries, of whom there were thousands in Asia and Greece, many of them political exiles from their own cities. A decree brought by Nicanor to Europe and proclaimed at Olympia (September 324) required the Greek cities of the Greek League to receive back all exiles and their families (except the Thebans), a measure that implied some modification of the oligarchic regimes maintained in the Greek cities by Alexander’s governor Antipater. Alexander now planned to recall Antipater and supersede him by Craterus; but he was to die before this could be done.
In autumn 324 Hephaestion died in Ecbatana, and Alexander indulged in extravagant mourning for his closest friend; he was given a royal funeral in Babylon with a pyre costing 10,000 talents. His post of chiliarch (grand vizier) was left unfilled. It was probably in connection with a general order now sent out to the Greeks to honor Hephaestion as a hero that Alexander linked the demand that he himself should be accorded divine honors. For a long time his mind had dwelt on ideas of godhead. Greek thought drew no very decided line of demarcation between god and man, for legend offered more than one example of men who, by their achievements, acquired divine status. Alexander had on several occasions encouraged favorable comparison of his own accomplishments with those of Dionysus or Heracles. He now seems to have become convinced of the reality of his own divinity and to have required its acceptance by others. There is no reason to assume that his demand had any political background (divine status gave its possessor no particular rights in a Greek city); it was rather a symptom of growing megalomania and emotional instability. The cities perforce complied, but often ironically: the Spartan decree read, “Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god.”
In the winter of 324 Alexander carried out a savage punitive expedition against the Cossaeans in the hills of Luristan. The following spring at Babylon he received complimentary embassies from the Libyans and from the Bruttians, Etruscans, and Lucanians of Italy; but the story that embassies also came from more distant peoples, such as Carthaginians, Celts, Iberians, and even Romans, is a later invention. Representatives of the cities of Greece also came, garlanded as befitted Alexander’s divine status. Following up Nearchus’ voyage, he now founded an Alexandria at the mouth of the Tigris and made plans to develop sea communications with India, for which an expedition along the Arabian coast was to be a preliminary. He also dispatched Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e., Caspian) Sea. Suddenly, in Babylon, while busy with plans to improve the irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf, Alexander was taken ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout; 10 days later, on June 13, 323, he died in his 33rd year; he had reigned for 12 years and eight months. His body, diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy, the later king, was eventually placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria. Both in Egypt and elsewhere in the Greek cities he received divine honors.
No heir had been appointed to the throne, and his generals adopted Philip II’s half-witted illegitimate son, Philip Arrhidaeus, and Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander IV, as kings, sharing out the satrapies among themselves, after much bargaining. The empire could hardly survive Alexander’s death as a unit. Both kings were murdered, Arrhidaeus in 317 and Alexander in 310/309. The provinces became independent kingdoms, and the generals, following Antigonus’ lead in 306, took the title of king.
Of Alexander’s plans little reliable information survives. The far-reaching schemes for the conquest of the western Mediterranean and the setting up of a universal monarchy, recorded by Diodorus, a 1st-century Greek historian, are probably based on a later forgery; if not, they were at once jettisoned by his successors and the army. Had he lived, he would no doubt have completed the conquest of Asia Minor, where Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Armenia still maintained an effective independence. But in his later years Alexander’s aims seem to have been directed toward exploration, in particular of Arabia and the Caspian.
In the organization of his empire, Alexander had been content in many spheres to improvise and adapt what he found. His financial policy is an exception; though the details cannot be wholly recovered, it is clear that he set up a central organization with collectors perhaps independent of the local satraps. That this proved a failure was partly due to weaknesses in the character of Harpalus, his chief treasurer. But the establishment of a new coinage with a silver standard based on that of Athens in place of the old bimetallic system current both in Macedonia and in Persia helped trade everywhere and, combined with the release of vast amounts of bullion from the Persian treasuries, gave a much-needed stimulus to the economy of the whole Mediterranean area.
Alexander’s foundation of new cities—Plutarch speaks of over 70—initiated a new chapter in Greek expansion. No doubt many of the colonists, by no means volunteers, deserted these cities, and marriages with native women led to some dilution of Greek ways; but the Greek (rather than Macedonian) influence remained strong in most of them, and since the process was carried further by Alexander’s Seleucid successors, the spread of Hellenic thought and customs over much of Asia as far as Bactria and India was one of the more striking effects of Alexander’s conquests.
His plans for racial fusion, on the other hand, were a failure. The Iranian provincial governors were perhaps not efficient, for out of 18, ten were removed or executed—with what justice it is no longer possible to say. But, more important, the Macedonians, leaders and men alike, rejected the idea, and in the later Seleucid Empire the Greek and Macedonian element was to be clearly dominant.
How far Alexander would have succeeded in the difficult task of coordinating his vast dominions, had he lived, is hard to determine. The only link between the many units that went to make up an empire more disparate than that of the Habsburgs, and far larger, was his own person; and his death came before he could tackle this problem.
What had so far held it all together was his own dynamic personality. He combined an iron will and ability to drive himself and his men to the utmost with a supple and flexible mind. Alexander knew when to draw back and change his policy, though he did this reluctantly. He was imaginative and not without romantic impulses. Figures like Achilles, Heracles, and Dionysus were often in his mind, and the salutation at the oracle of Amon clearly influenced his thoughts and ambitions thereafter. He was swift in anger, and under the strain of his long campaigns this side of his character grew more pronounced. Ruthless and self-willed, he had increasing recourse to terror, showing no hesitation in eliminating men whom he had ceased to trust, either with or without the pretense of a fair trial. Years after his death, Cassander, son of Antipater, a regent of the Macedonian Empire under Alexander, could not pass his statue at Delphi without shuddering. Yet he maintained the loyalty of his men, who followed him to the Hyphasis without complaining and continued to believe in him throughout all hardships. Only when his whim would have taken them still farther into unknown India did he fail to get his way.
As a general Alexander is among the greatest the world has known. He showed unusual versatility both in the combination of different arms and in adapting his tactics to the challenge of enemies who commanded novel forms of warfare—the Śaka nomads, the Indian hill tribes, or Porus with his elephants. His strategy was skillful and imaginative, and he knew how to exploit the chances that arise in every battle and may be decisive for victory or defeat; he also drew the last advantage from victory by relentless pursuit. His use of cavalry was so effective that he rarely had to fall back upon his infantry to deliver the crushing blow.
Alexander’s short reign marks a decisive moment in the history of Europe and Asia. His expedition and his own personal interest in scientific investigation brought many advances in the knowledge of geography and natural history. His career led to the moving of the great centers of civilization eastward and initiated the new age of the Greek territorial monarchies; it spread Hellenism in a vast colonizing wave throughout the Middle East and created, if not politically at least economically and culturally, a single world stretching from Gibraltar to the Punjab, open to trade and social intercourse and with a considerable overlay of common civilization and the Greek koinē as a lingua franca. It is not untrue to say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world religion, and the long centuries of Byzantium were all in some degree the fruits of Alexander’s achievement.
Alexander the Great in the Qur'an refers to the conjecture that the story of Dhul-Qarnayn (in Arabic, literally "The Two-Horned One", also transliterated as Zul-Qarnain or Zulqarnain), mentioned in the Qur'an, is in fact a reference to Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great. Dhul-Qarnayn is a figure who was well-known in the lore of the ancient dwellers of the Arabian Peninsula and is mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam. Dhul-Qarnayn is regarded by some Muslims as a prophet, and is identified with Alexander the Great in early Islamic literature. The Qur'an indicates that the people during Muhammad's time already knew tales of a person of great power by the name of Dhul-Qarnayn. There have been many different cultural depictions of Alexander the Great since antiquity. Muslims have generally endorsed the identification of Dhul-Qarnayn with Alexander the Great, at least until recent times. At the same time, secular philologists studying ancient Syriac Christian legends about Alexander the Great independently came to the conclusion that the epithet Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an refers to Alexander the Great. The Alexander legends, known as the Alexander romance have many similarities to the story in the Qur'an but are also more elaborate and describe Alexander's fantastical deeds in detail, such as the story of Alexander building a wall at the end of the flat Earth. The identification of Alexander with Dhul-Qarnayn has been a matter of theological controversy amongst Islamic scholars since early times, but similarities between the Qur'an and the Alexander romance folklore were only identified in relatively recent academic research based on the discovery of certain medieval Syriac manuscripts.
“the two-horned” see Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon see Alexander the Great
Alexander of Macedonia see Alexander the Great
Dhul-Qarnayn see Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (356 B.C.T. - June 13, 323 B.C.T.). Macedonian general and empire builder. It is generally agreed that the epithet “the two-horned” in Qur’an 18:82-98 is to be identified with Alexander the Great. There it is said that he was given power on earth and that he built a wall or rampart of iron and brass against the incursions of Gog and Magog.
Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greek King (basileus) of Macedon (336–323 B.C.T.). He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, adding it to Macedon's European territories.
Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia (b. 356 B.C.T., Pella, Macedonia—d. June 13, 323 B.C.T., Babylon), king of Macedonia (336–323 B.C.T.). He overthrew the Persian Empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.
Alexander was born in 356 B.C.T. at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus). From age 13 to 16 he was taught by Aristotle, who inspired him with an interest in philosophy, medicine, and scientific investigation; but he was later to advance beyond his teacher’s narrow precept that non-Greeks should be treated as slaves. Left in charge of Macedonia in 340 during Philip’s attack on Byzantium, Alexander defeated the Maedi, a Thracian people; two years later he commanded the left wing at the Battle of Chaeronea, in which Philip defeated the allied Greek states, and displayed personal courage in breaking the Sacred Band of Thebes. A year later Philip divorced Olympias; and, after a quarrel at a feast held to celebrate his father’s new marriage, Alexander and his mother fled to Epirus, and Alexander later went to Illyria. Shortly afterward, father and son were reconciled and Alexander returned; but his position as heir was jeopardized.
In 336, however, on Philip’s assassination, Alexander, acclaimed by the army, succeeded without opposition. He at once executed the princes of Lyncestis, alleged to be behind Philip’s murder, along with all possible rivals and the whole of the faction opposed to him. He then marched south, recovered a wavering Thessaly, and at an assembly of the Greek League at Corinth was appointed generalissimo for the forthcoming invasion of Asia, already planned and initiated by Philip. Returning to Macedonia by way of Delphi (where the Pythian priestess acclaimed him “invincible”), he advanced into Thrace in spring 335 and, after forcing the Shipka Pass and crushing the Triballi, crossed the Danube to disperse the Getae; turning west, he then defeated and shattered a coalition of Illyrians who had invaded Macedonia. Meanwhile, a rumor of his death had precipitated a revolt of Theban democrats; other Greek states favored Thebes, and the Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, voted help. In 14 days Alexander marched 240 miles from Pelion (near modern Korçë, Albania) in Illyria to Thebes. When the Thebans refused to surrender, he made an entry and razed their city to the ground, sparing only temples and Pindar’s house; 6,000 were killed and all survivors sold into slavery. The other Greek states were cowed by this severity, and Alexander could afford to treat Athens leniently. Macedonian garrisons were left in Corinth, Chalcis, and the Cadmea (the citadel of Thebes).
From his accession Alexander had set his mind on the Persian expedition. He had grown up with the idea. Moreover, he needed the wealth of Persia if he was to maintain the army built by Philip and pay off the 500 talents he owed. The exploits of the Ten Thousand, Greek soldiers of fortune, and of Agesilaus of Sparta, in successfully campaigning in Persian territory had revealed the vulnerability of the Persian Empire. With a good cavalry force Alexander could expect to defeat any Persian army. In spring 334 he crossed the Dardanelles, leaving Antipater, who had already faithfully served his father, as his deputy in Europe with over 13,000 men; he himself commanded about 30,000 foot and over 5,000 cavalry, of whom nearly 14,000 were Macedonians and about 7,000 allies sent by the Greek League. This army was to prove remarkable for its balanced combination of arms. Much work fell on the lightarmed Cretan and Macedonian archers, Thracians, and the Agrianian javelin men. But in pitched battle the striking force was the cavalry, and the core of the army, should the issue still remain undecided after the cavalry charge, was the infantry phalanx, 9,000 strong, armed with 13-foot spears and shields, and the 3,000 men of the royal battalions, the hypaspists. Alexander’s second in command was Parmenio, who had secured a foothold in Asia Minor during Philip’s lifetime; many of his family and supporters were entrenched in positions of responsibility. The army was accompanied by surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court officials, and historians; from the outset Alexander seems to have envisaged an unlimited operation.
After visiting Ilium (Troy), a romantic gesture inspired by Homer, he confronted his first Persian army, led by three satraps (Persian provincial governors), at the Granicus (modern Kocabaş) River, near the Sea of Marmara (May/June 334). The Persian plan to tempt Alexander across the river and kill him in the melee almost succeeded; but the Persian line broke, and Alexander’s victory was complete. Darius’ Greek mercenaries were largely massacred, but 2,000 survivors were sent back to Macedonia in chains. This victory exposed western Asia Minor to the Macedonians, and most cities hastened to open their gates. The tyrants were expelled and (in contrast to Macedonian policy in Greece) democracies were installed. Alexander thus underlined his Panhellenic policy, already symbolized in the sending of 300 panoplies (sets of armour) taken at the Granicus as an offering dedicated to Athena at Athens by “Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks (except the Spartans) from the barbarians who inhabit Asia.” (This formula, cited by the Greek historian Arrian in his history of Alexander’s campaigns, is noteworthy for its omission of any reference to Macedonia.) But the cities remained de facto under Alexander, and his appointment of Calas as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia reflected his claim to succeed the Great King of Persia. When Miletus, encouraged by the proximity of the Persian fleet, resisted, Alexander took it by assault; but, refusing a naval battle, he disbanded his own costly navy and announced that he would “defeat the Persian fleet on land,” by occupying the coastal cities. In Caria, Halicarnassus resisted and was stormed; but Ada, the widow and sister of the satrap Idrieus, adopted Alexander as her son and, after expelling her brother Pixodarus, Alexander restored her to her satrapy. Some parts of Caria held out, however, until 332.
In the winter of 334–333 Alexander conquered western Asia Minor, subduing the hill tribes of Lycia and Pisidia; and in the spring of 333 he advanced along the coastal road to Perga, passing the cliffs of Mt. Climax, thanks to a fortunate change of wind. The fall in the level of the sea was interpreted as a mark of divine favor by Alexander’s flatterers, including the historian Callisthenes. At Gordium in Phrygia, tradition records his cutting of the Gordian knot, which could only be loosed by the man who was to rule Asia; but this story may be apocryphal or at least distorted. At this point Alexander benefitted from the sudden death of Memnon, the competent Greek commander of the Persian fleet. From Gordium he pushed on to Ancyra (modern Ankara) and thence south through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Boğazi); a fever held him up for a time in Cilicia. Meanwhile, Darius with his Grand Army had advanced northward on the eastern side of Mt. Amanus. Intelligence on both sides was faulty, and Alexander was already encamped by Myriandrus (near modern Iskenderun, Turkey) when he learned that Darius was astride his line of communications at Issus, north of Alexander’s position (autumn 333). Turning, Alexander found Darius drawn up along the Pinarus River. In the battle that followed, Alexander won a decisive victory. The struggle turned into a Persian rout and Darius fled, leaving his family in Alexander’s hands; the women were treated with chivalrous care.
From Issus, Alexander marched south into Syria and Phoenicia, his object being to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases and so to destroy it as an effective fighting force. The Phoenician cities Marathus and Aradus came over quietly, and Parmenio was sent ahead to secure Damascus and its rich booty, including Darius’ war chest. In reply to a letter from Darius offering peace, Alexander replied arrogantly, recapitulating the historic wrongs of Greece and demanding unconditional surrender to himself as lord of Asia. After taking Byblos (modern Jubayl) and Sidon (Arabic Ṣaydā), he met with a check at Tyre, where he was refused entry into the island city. He thereupon prepared to use all methods of siegecraft to take it, but the Tyrians resisted, holding out for seven months. In the meantime (winter 333–332) the Persians had counterattacked by land in Asia Minor—where they were defeated by Antigonus, the satrap of Greater Phrygia—and by sea, recapturing a number of cities and islands.
While the siege of Tyre was in progress, Darius sent a new offer: he would pay a huge ransom of 10,000 talents for his family and cede all his lands west of the Euphrates. “I would accept,” Parmenio is reported to have said, “were I Alexander”; “I too,” was the famous retort, “were I Parmenio.” The storming of Tyre in July 332 was Alexander’s greatest military achievement; it was attended with great carnage and the sale of the women and children into slavery. Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a sortie. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to visit Jerusalem.
In November 332 Alexander reached Egypt. The people welcomed him as their deliverer, and the Persian satrap (provincial governor) Mazaces wisely surrendered. At Memphis, Alexander sacrificed to Apis, the Greek term for Hapi, the sacred Egyptian bull, and was crowned with the traditional double crown of the pharaohs; the native priests were placated and their religion encouraged. He spent the winter organizing Egypt, where he employed Egyptian governors, keeping the army under a separate Macedonian command. He founded the city of Alexandria near the western arm of the Nile on a fine site between the sea and Lake Mareotis, protected by the island of Pharos, and had it laid out by the Rhodian architect Deinocrates. He is also said to have sent an expedition to discover the causes of the flooding of the Nile. From Alexandria he marched along the coast to Paraetonium and from there inland to visit the celebrated oracle of the god Amon (at Sīwah); the difficult journey was later embroidered with flattering legends. On his reaching the oracle in its oasis, the priest gave him the traditional salutation of a pharaoh, as son of Amon; Alexander consulted the god on the success of his expedition but revealed the reply to no one. Later the incident was to contribute to the story that he was the son of Zeus and, thus, to his “deification.” In spring 331 he returned to Tyre, appointed a Macedonian provincial governor for Syria, and prepared to advance into Mesopotamia. His conquest of Egypt had completed his control of the whole eastern Mediterranean coast.
By July 331 Alexander was at Thapsacus on the Euphrates. Instead of taking the direct route down the river to Babylon, he made across northern Mesopotamia toward the Tigris, and Darius, learning of this move from an advance force sent under Mazaeus to the Euphrates crossing, marched up the Tigris to oppose him. The decisive battle of the war was fought on October 31, on the plain of Gaugamela between Nineveh and Arbela. Alexander pursued the defeated Persian forces for 35 miles to Arbela, but Darius escaped with his Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries into Media.
Alexander now occupied Babylon, city and province; Mazaeus, who surrendered it, was confirmed as satrap in conjunction with a Macedonian troop commander, and quite exceptionally was granted the right to coin. As in Egypt, the local priesthood was encouraged. Susa, the capital, also surrendered, releasing huge treasures amounting to 50,000 gold talents; here Alexander established Darius’ family in comfort. Crushing the mountain tribe of the Ouxians, he now pressed on over the Zagros range into Persia proper and, successfully turning the Pass of the Persian Gates, held by the satrap Ariobarzanes, he entered Persepolis and Pasargadae. At Persepolis he ceremonially burned down the palace of Xerxes, as a symbol that the Panhellenic war of revenge was at an end; for such seems the probable significance of an act that tradition later explained as a drunken frolic inspired by Thaïs, an Athenian courtesan. In spring 330 Alexander marched north into Media and occupied its capital Ecbatana. The Thessalians and Greek allies were sent home; henceforward he was waging a purely personal war.
As Mazaeus’ appointment indicated, Alexander’s views on the empire were changing. He had come to envisage a joint ruling people consisting of Macedonians and Persians, and this served to augment the misunderstanding that now arose between him and his people. Before continuing his pursuit of Darius, who had retreated into Bactria, he assembled all the Persian treasure and entrusted it to Harpalus, who was to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer. Parmenio was also left behind in Media to control communications; the presence of this older man had perhaps become irksome.
In midsummer 330 Alexander set out for the eastern provinces at a high speed via Rhagae (modern Rayy, near Tehrān) and the Caspian Gates, where he learned that Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, had deposed Darius. After a skirmish near modern Shāhrūd, the usurper had Darius stabbed and left him to die. Alexander sent his body for burial with due honors in the royal tombs at Persepolis.
Darius’ death left no obstacle to Alexander’s claim to be Great King, and a Rhodian inscription of this year (330) calls him “lord of Asia”—i.e., of the Persian Empire; soon afterward his Asian coins carry the title of king. Crossing the Elburz Mountains to the Caspian, he seized Zadracarta in Hyrcania and received the submission of a group of satraps and Persian notables, some of whom he confirmed in their offices; in a diversion westward, perhaps to modern Āmol, he reduced the Mardi, a mountain people who inhabited the Elburz Mountains. He also accepted the surrender of Darius’ Greek mercenaries. His advance eastward was now rapid. In Aria he reduced Satibarzanes, who had offered submission only to revolt, and he founded Alexandria of the Arians (modern Herāt). At Phrada in Drangiana (either near modern Nad-e ʿAli in Seistan or farther north at Farah), he at last took steps to destroy Parmenio and his family. Philotas, Parmenio’s son, commander of the elite Companion cavalry, was implicated in an alleged plot against Alexander’s life, condemned by the army, and executed; and a secret message was sent to Cleander, Parmenio’s second in command, who obediently assassinated him. This ruthless action excited widespread horror but strengthened Alexander’s position relative to his critics and those whom he regarded as his father’s men. All Parmenio’s adherents were now eliminated and men close to Alexander promoted. The Companion cavalry was reorganized in two sections, each containing four squadrons (now known as hipparchies); one group was commanded by Alexander’s oldest friend, Hephaestion, the other by Cleitus, an older man. From Phrada, Alexander pressed on during the winter of 330–329 up the valley of the Helmand River, through Arachosia, and over the mountains past the site of modern Kābul into the country of the Paropamisadae, where he founded Alexandria by the Caucasus.
Bessus was now in Bactria raising a national revolt in the eastern satrapies with the usurped title of Great King. Crossing the Hindu Kush northward over the Khawak Pass (11,650 feet), Alexander brought his army, despite food shortages, to Drapsaca (sometimes identified with modern Banu [Andarab], probably farther north at Qunduz); outflanked, Bessus fled beyond the Oxus (modern Amu Darya), and Alexander, marching west to Bactra-Zariaspa (modern Balkh [Wazirabad] in Afghanistan), appointed loyal satraps in Bactria and Aria. Crossing the Oxus, he sent his general Ptolemy in pursuit of Bessus, who had meanwhile been overthrown by the Sogdian Spitamenes. Bessus was captured, flogged, and sent to Bactra, where he was later mutilated after the Persian manner (losing his nose and ears); in due course he was publicly executed at Ecbatana.
From Maracanda (modern Samarkand) Alexander advanced by way of Cyropolis to the Jaxartes (modern Syrdarya), the boundary of the Persian Empire. There he broke the opposition of the Scythian nomads by his use of catapults and, after defeating them in a battle on the north bank of the river, pursued them into the interior. On the site of modern Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes, he founded a city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai, a people of the Śaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of 328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his campaigns. Later in the same year he attacked Oxyartes and the remaining barons who held out in the hills of Paraetacene (modern Tadzhikistan); volunteers seized the crag on which Oxyartes had his stronghold, and among the captives was his daughter, Roxana. In reconciliation Alexander married her, and the rest of his opponents were either won over or crushed.
An incident that occurred at Maracanda widened the breach between Alexander and many of his Macedonians. He murdered Cleitus, one of his most trusted commanders, in a drunken quarrel; but his excessive display of remorse led the army to pass a decree convicting Cleitus posthumously of treason. The event marked a step in Alexander’s progress toward Eastern absolutism, and this growing attitude found its outward expression in his use of Persian royal dress. Shortly afterward, at Bactra, he attempted to impose the Persian court ceremonial, involving prostration (proskynesis), on the Greeks and Macedonians too; but to them this custom, habitual for Persians entering the king’s presence, implied an act of worship and was intolerable before a man. Even Callisthenes, historian and nephew of Aristotle, whose ostentatious flattery had perhaps encouraged Alexander to see himself in the role of a god, refused to abase himself. Macedonian laughter caused the experiment to founder, and Alexander abandoned it. Shortly afterward, however, Callisthenes was held to be privy to a conspiracy among the royal pages and was executed (or died in prison; accounts vary); resentment of this action alienated sympathy from Alexander within the Peripatetic school of philosophers, with which Callisthenes had close connections.
In early summer 327 Alexander left Bactria with a reinforced army under a reorganized command. If Plutarch’s figure of 120,000 men has any reality, however, it must include all kinds of auxiliary services, together with muleteers, camel drivers, medical corps, peddlers, entertainers, women, and children; the fighting strength perhaps stood at about 35,000. Recrossing the Hindu Kush, probably by Bamiyan and the Ghorband Valley, Alexander divided his forces. Half the army with the baggage under Hephaestion and Perdiccas, both cavalry commanders, was sent through the Khyber Pass, while he himself led the rest, together with his siege train, through the hills to the north. His advance through Swāt and Gandhāra was marked by the storming of the almost impregnable pinnacle of Aornos, the modern Pir-Sar, a few miles west of the Indus and north of the Buner River, an impressive feat of siegecraft. In spring 326, crossing the Indus near Attock, Alexander entered Taxila, whose ruler, Taxiles, furnished elephants and troops in return for aid against his rival Porus, who ruled the lands between the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum) and the Acesines (modern Chenāb). In June Alexander fought his last great battle on the left bank of the Hydaspes. He founded two cities there, Alexandria Nicaea (to celebrate his victory) and Bucephala (named after his horse Bucephalus, which died there); and Porus became his ally.
How much Alexander knew of India beyond the Hyphasis (probably the modern Beas) is uncertain; there is no conclusive proof that he had heard of the Ganges. But he was anxious to press on farther, and he had advanced to the Hyphasis when his army mutinied, refusing to go farther in the tropical rain; they were weary in body and spirit, and Coenus, one of Alexander’s four chief marshals, acted as their spokesman. On finding the army adamant, Alexander agreed to turn back.
On the Hyphasis he erected 12 altars to the 12 Olympian gods, and on the Hydaspes he built a fleet of 800 to 1,000 ships. Leaving Porus, he then proceeded down the river and into the Indus, with half his forces on shipboard and half marching in three columns down the two banks. The fleet was commanded by Nearchus, and Alexander’s own captain was Onesicritus; both later wrote accounts of the campaign. The march was attended with much fighting and heavy, pitiless slaughter; at the storming of one town of the Malli near the Hydraotes (Ravi) River, Alexander received a severe wound which left him weakened.
On reaching Patala, located at the head of the Indus delta, he built a harbor and docks and explored both arms of the Indus, which probably then ran into the Rann of Kutch. He planned to lead part of his forces back by land, while the rest in perhaps 100 to 150 ships under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan with naval experience, made a voyage of exploration along the Persian Gulf. Local opposition led Nearchus to set sail in September (325), and he was held up for three weeks until he could pick up the northeast monsoon in late October. In September Alexander too set out along the coast through Gedrosia (modern Baluchistan), but he was soon compelled by mountainous country to turn inland, thus failing in his project to establish food depots for the fleet. Craterus, a high-ranking officer, already had been sent off with the baggage and siege train, the elephants, and the sick and wounded, together with three battalions of the phalanx, by way of the Mulla Pass, Quetta, and Kandahar into the Helmand Valley; from there he was to march through Drangiana to rejoin the main army on the Amanis (modern Minab) River in Carmania. Alexander’s march through Gedrosia proved disastrous; waterless desert and shortage of food and fuel caused great suffering, and many, especially women and children, perished in a sudden monsoon flood while encamped in a wadi. At length, at the Amanis, he was rejoined by Nearchus and the fleet, which also had suffered losses.
Alexander the Great’s conquests freed the West from the menace of Persian rule and spread Greek culture. Alexander now proceeded farther with the policy of replacing senior officials and executing defaulting governors on which he had already embarked before leaving India. Between 326 and 324 over a third of his satraps were superseded and six were put to death, including the Persian satraps of Persis, Susiana, Carmania, and Paraetacene; three generals in Media, including Cleander, the brother of Coenus (who had died a little earlier), were accused of extortion and summoned to Carmania, where they were arrested, tried, and executed. How far the rigor that from now onward Alexander displayed against his governors represents exemplary punishment for gross maladministration during his absence and how far the elimination of men he had come to distrust (as in the case of Philotas and Parmenio) is debatable; but the ancient sources generally favorable to him comment adversely on his severity.
In spring 324 he was back in Susa, capital of Elam and administrative centre of the Persian Empire; the story of his journey through Carmania in a drunken revel, dressed as Dionysus, is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal. He found that his treasurer, Harpalus, evidently fearing punishment for peculation, had absconded with 6,000 mercenaries and 5,000 talents to Greece; arrested in Athens, he escaped and later was murdered in Crete. At Susa Alexander held a feast to celebrate the seizure of the Persian Empire, at which, in furtherance of his policy of fusing Macedonians and Persians into one master race, he and 80 of his officers took Persian wives; he and Hephaestion married Darius’ daughters Barsine (also called Stateira) and Drypetis, respectively, and 10,000 of his soldiers with native wives were given generous dowries.
This policy of racial fusion brought increasing friction to Alexander’s relations with his Macedonians, who had no sympathy for his changed concept of the empire. His determination to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the administration of the provinces was bitterly resented. This discontent was now fanned by the arrival of 30,000 native youths who had received a Macedonian military training and by the introduction of Orientals from Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, and other parts of the empire into the Companion cavalry; whether Orientals had previously served with the Companions is uncertain, but if so they must have formed separate squadrons. In addition, Persian nobles had been accepted into the royal cavalry bodyguard. Peucestas, the new governor of Persis, gave this policy full support to flatter Alexander; but most Macedonians saw it as a threat to their own privileged position.
The issue came to a head at Opis (324), when Alexander’s decision to send home Macedonian veterans under Craterus was interpreted as a move toward transferring the seat of power to Asia. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard; but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians instead, the opposition broke down. An emotional scene of reconciliation was followed by a vast banquet with 9,000 guests to celebrate the ending of the misunderstanding and the partnership in government of Macedonians and Persians—but not, as has been argued, the incorporation of all the subject peoples as partners in the commonwealth. Ten thousand veterans were now sent back to Macedonia with gifts, and the crisis was surmounted.
In summer 324 Alexander attempted to solve another problem, that of the wandering mercenaries, of whom there were thousands in Asia and Greece, many of them political exiles from their own cities. A decree brought by Nicanor to Europe and proclaimed at Olympia (September 324) required the Greek cities of the Greek League to receive back all exiles and their families (except the Thebans), a measure that implied some modification of the oligarchic regimes maintained in the Greek cities by Alexander’s governor Antipater. Alexander now planned to recall Antipater and supersede him by Craterus; but he was to die before this could be done.
In autumn 324 Hephaestion died in Ecbatana, and Alexander indulged in extravagant mourning for his closest friend; he was given a royal funeral in Babylon with a pyre costing 10,000 talents. His post of chiliarch (grand vizier) was left unfilled. It was probably in connection with a general order now sent out to the Greeks to honor Hephaestion as a hero that Alexander linked the demand that he himself should be accorded divine honors. For a long time his mind had dwelt on ideas of godhead. Greek thought drew no very decided line of demarcation between god and man, for legend offered more than one example of men who, by their achievements, acquired divine status. Alexander had on several occasions encouraged favorable comparison of his own accomplishments with those of Dionysus or Heracles. He now seems to have become convinced of the reality of his own divinity and to have required its acceptance by others. There is no reason to assume that his demand had any political background (divine status gave its possessor no particular rights in a Greek city); it was rather a symptom of growing megalomania and emotional instability. The cities perforce complied, but often ironically: the Spartan decree read, “Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god.”
In the winter of 324 Alexander carried out a savage punitive expedition against the Cossaeans in the hills of Luristan. The following spring at Babylon he received complimentary embassies from the Libyans and from the Bruttians, Etruscans, and Lucanians of Italy; but the story that embassies also came from more distant peoples, such as Carthaginians, Celts, Iberians, and even Romans, is a later invention. Representatives of the cities of Greece also came, garlanded as befitted Alexander’s divine status. Following up Nearchus’ voyage, he now founded an Alexandria at the mouth of the Tigris and made plans to develop sea communications with India, for which an expedition along the Arabian coast was to be a preliminary. He also dispatched Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e., Caspian) Sea. Suddenly, in Babylon, while busy with plans to improve the irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf, Alexander was taken ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout; 10 days later, on June 13, 323, he died in his 33rd year; he had reigned for 12 years and eight months. His body, diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy, the later king, was eventually placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria. Both in Egypt and elsewhere in the Greek cities he received divine honors.
No heir had been appointed to the throne, and his generals adopted Philip II’s half-witted illegitimate son, Philip Arrhidaeus, and Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander IV, as kings, sharing out the satrapies among themselves, after much bargaining. The empire could hardly survive Alexander’s death as a unit. Both kings were murdered, Arrhidaeus in 317 and Alexander in 310/309. The provinces became independent kingdoms, and the generals, following Antigonus’ lead in 306, took the title of king.
Of Alexander’s plans little reliable information survives. The far-reaching schemes for the conquest of the western Mediterranean and the setting up of a universal monarchy, recorded by Diodorus, a 1st-century Greek historian, are probably based on a later forgery; if not, they were at once jettisoned by his successors and the army. Had he lived, he would no doubt have completed the conquest of Asia Minor, where Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Armenia still maintained an effective independence. But in his later years Alexander’s aims seem to have been directed toward exploration, in particular of Arabia and the Caspian.
In the organization of his empire, Alexander had been content in many spheres to improvise and adapt what he found. His financial policy is an exception; though the details cannot be wholly recovered, it is clear that he set up a central organization with collectors perhaps independent of the local satraps. That this proved a failure was partly due to weaknesses in the character of Harpalus, his chief treasurer. But the establishment of a new coinage with a silver standard based on that of Athens in place of the old bimetallic system current both in Macedonia and in Persia helped trade everywhere and, combined with the release of vast amounts of bullion from the Persian treasuries, gave a much-needed stimulus to the economy of the whole Mediterranean area.
Alexander’s foundation of new cities—Plutarch speaks of over 70—initiated a new chapter in Greek expansion. No doubt many of the colonists, by no means volunteers, deserted these cities, and marriages with native women led to some dilution of Greek ways; but the Greek (rather than Macedonian) influence remained strong in most of them, and since the process was carried further by Alexander’s Seleucid successors, the spread of Hellenic thought and customs over much of Asia as far as Bactria and India was one of the more striking effects of Alexander’s conquests.
His plans for racial fusion, on the other hand, were a failure. The Iranian provincial governors were perhaps not efficient, for out of 18, ten were removed or executed—with what justice it is no longer possible to say. But, more important, the Macedonians, leaders and men alike, rejected the idea, and in the later Seleucid Empire the Greek and Macedonian element was to be clearly dominant.
How far Alexander would have succeeded in the difficult task of coordinating his vast dominions, had he lived, is hard to determine. The only link between the many units that went to make up an empire more disparate than that of the Habsburgs, and far larger, was his own person; and his death came before he could tackle this problem.
What had so far held it all together was his own dynamic personality. He combined an iron will and ability to drive himself and his men to the utmost with a supple and flexible mind. Alexander knew when to draw back and change his policy, though he did this reluctantly. He was imaginative and not without romantic impulses. Figures like Achilles, Heracles, and Dionysus were often in his mind, and the salutation at the oracle of Amon clearly influenced his thoughts and ambitions thereafter. He was swift in anger, and under the strain of his long campaigns this side of his character grew more pronounced. Ruthless and self-willed, he had increasing recourse to terror, showing no hesitation in eliminating men whom he had ceased to trust, either with or without the pretense of a fair trial. Years after his death, Cassander, son of Antipater, a regent of the Macedonian Empire under Alexander, could not pass his statue at Delphi without shuddering. Yet he maintained the loyalty of his men, who followed him to the Hyphasis without complaining and continued to believe in him throughout all hardships. Only when his whim would have taken them still farther into unknown India did he fail to get his way.
As a general Alexander is among the greatest the world has known. He showed unusual versatility both in the combination of different arms and in adapting his tactics to the challenge of enemies who commanded novel forms of warfare—the Śaka nomads, the Indian hill tribes, or Porus with his elephants. His strategy was skillful and imaginative, and he knew how to exploit the chances that arise in every battle and may be decisive for victory or defeat; he also drew the last advantage from victory by relentless pursuit. His use of cavalry was so effective that he rarely had to fall back upon his infantry to deliver the crushing blow.
Alexander’s short reign marks a decisive moment in the history of Europe and Asia. His expedition and his own personal interest in scientific investigation brought many advances in the knowledge of geography and natural history. His career led to the moving of the great centers of civilization eastward and initiated the new age of the Greek territorial monarchies; it spread Hellenism in a vast colonizing wave throughout the Middle East and created, if not politically at least economically and culturally, a single world stretching from Gibraltar to the Punjab, open to trade and social intercourse and with a considerable overlay of common civilization and the Greek koinē as a lingua franca. It is not untrue to say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world religion, and the long centuries of Byzantium were all in some degree the fruits of Alexander’s achievement.
Alexander the Great in the Qur'an refers to the conjecture that the story of Dhul-Qarnayn (in Arabic, literally "The Two-Horned One", also transliterated as Zul-Qarnain or Zulqarnain), mentioned in the Qur'an, is in fact a reference to Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great. Dhul-Qarnayn is a figure who was well-known in the lore of the ancient dwellers of the Arabian Peninsula and is mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam. Dhul-Qarnayn is regarded by some Muslims as a prophet, and is identified with Alexander the Great in early Islamic literature. The Qur'an indicates that the people during Muhammad's time already knew tales of a person of great power by the name of Dhul-Qarnayn. There have been many different cultural depictions of Alexander the Great since antiquity. Muslims have generally endorsed the identification of Dhul-Qarnayn with Alexander the Great, at least until recent times. At the same time, secular philologists studying ancient Syriac Christian legends about Alexander the Great independently came to the conclusion that the epithet Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an refers to Alexander the Great. The Alexander legends, known as the Alexander romance have many similarities to the story in the Qur'an but are also more elaborate and describe Alexander's fantastical deeds in detail, such as the story of Alexander building a wall at the end of the flat Earth. The identification of Alexander with Dhul-Qarnayn has been a matter of theological controversy amongst Islamic scholars since early times, but similarities between the Qur'an and the Alexander romance folklore were only identified in relatively recent academic research based on the discovery of certain medieval Syriac manuscripts.
“the two-horned” see Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon see Alexander the Great
Alexander of Macedonia see Alexander the Great
Dhul-Qarnayn see Alexander the Great
Alfarabius
Alfarabius. See Abu Nasr al-Farabi.
Alfarabius. See Abu Nasr al-Farabi.
Alfraganus
Alfraganus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani). An astronomer from Farghana from the ninth century. His work was translated into Latin by John of Seville and Gerard of Cremona, and is known under the title Elementa astronomica. There also exists a Hebrew translation.
Abū al-'Abbās Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī also known as Alfraganus in the West was a Persian Muslim astronomer and one of the famous astronomers in 9th century.
Abu al-'Abbas was involved in the measurement of the diameter of the Earth together with a team of scientists under the patronage of al-Ma'mūn in Baghdad. His textbook Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions, written about 833, was a competent descriptive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was translated into Latin in the twelfth century and remained very popular in Europe until the time of Regiomontanus. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch orientalist Jacob Golius published the Arabic text on the basis of a manuscript he had acquired in the Near East, with a new Latin translation and extensive notes.
Later Abu al-'Abbas moved to Cairo, where he composed a treatise on the astrolabe around 856. There he also supervised the construction of the large Nilometer on the island of al-Rawda (in Old Cairo) in the year 861.
The crater Alfraganus on the Moon is named after Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani.
Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Alfraganus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani). An astronomer from Farghana from the ninth century. His work was translated into Latin by John of Seville and Gerard of Cremona, and is known under the title Elementa astronomica. There also exists a Hebrew translation.
Abū al-'Abbās Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī also known as Alfraganus in the West was a Persian Muslim astronomer and one of the famous astronomers in 9th century.
Abu al-'Abbas was involved in the measurement of the diameter of the Earth together with a team of scientists under the patronage of al-Ma'mūn in Baghdad. His textbook Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions, written about 833, was a competent descriptive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was translated into Latin in the twelfth century and remained very popular in Europe until the time of Regiomontanus. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch orientalist Jacob Golius published the Arabic text on the basis of a manuscript he had acquired in the Near East, with a new Latin translation and extensive notes.
Later Abu al-'Abbas moved to Cairo, where he composed a treatise on the astrolabe around 856. There he also supervised the construction of the large Nilometer on the island of al-Rawda (in Old Cairo) in the year 861.
The crater Alfraganus on the Moon is named after Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani.
Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Alhagiag bin Thalmus
Alhagiag bin Thalmus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus) (c.1164-1223). Physician and philosopher of Alcira. He succeeded Averroes as personal physician to the Almohad Muhammad al-Nasir (r. 1199 -1214).
Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus see Alhagiag bin Thalmus
Alhagiag bin Thalmus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus) (c.1164-1223). Physician and philosopher of Alcira. He succeeded Averroes as personal physician to the Almohad Muhammad al-Nasir (r. 1199 -1214).
Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus see Alhagiag bin Thalmus
Alhazen
Alhazen. See Ibn al-Haytham.
Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
Alhazen. See Ibn al-Haytham.
Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
Alhazen
Alhazen. See Ibn al-Haytham.
Ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
Alhazen. See Ibn al-Haytham.
Ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
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